A HEROINE immortalised in a Hollywood classic may have caused the torture of a Welsh man, a documentary claims.

Gladys Aylward was portrayed in the film, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, where she was played by Ingrid Bergman.

She is famous for helping young women involved in prostitution in Swansea's docklands, then moving to China where she worked as a Christian missionary.

In the film she was portrayed as a heroine whose actions saved the lives of dozens of children during the bloody war between China and Japan.

But Adar Drycin (Storm Birds), shown on S4C last night, said she was blinded by her faith and became a spy for the Chinese.

She ignored the warnings of other missionaries, who warned her that her involvement would cause misery.

And a Swansea man has spoken of the harsh treatment his father suffered at the hands of his Japanese captors, who suspected he was Aylward's accomplice.

Cardiff-born David Davies, who was one of Aylward's closest friends and allies in China, was tortured and thrown in an ancient prison for five years, as Aylward escaped the province where she was running an orphanage.

Two other men were killed in front of him as his tormentors tried to make him confess to spying - although he survived the ordeal, and never blamed Aylward for her reckless actions, according to his son Murray Davies.

Swansea production company Antena interviewed Murray Davies for the programme - which claimed Aylward's hatred of the Japanese led to her decision to go undercover despite the dangers involved.

The two missionaries met in China in 1935, while Aylward was running her famous orphanage in Yangchen.

As war raged, Yangchen was taken over by the Japanese.

Aylward hated the Japanese and their attacking of her beloved adopted country, and agreed to become a spy for China.

Speaking on the programme, Murray Davies tells of his father's worry over this.

"My father took her to task over this and said, 'Look, you know it's not the right thing to do'.

"He said, 'I appreciate your position, but it's not the right thing to do. We must remain absolutely neutral in this' and he said, I think, words to the effect that if it did come out in the open, heads would roll, literally."

But the Japanese discovered that Aylward was a spy and made her a wanted woman, offering $100 for information that would lead them to her.

Realising that the children's lives were in danger, David Davies and Aylward planned the infamous escape where Aylward led nearly 100 children on a long and dangerous journey over the mountains to the safety of the Shensi province.

But Davies, having stayed behind, was captured and accused of being a spy like Aylward.

"He was captured and thrown into this 2000-year-old prison in Taiwan, and sentenced to five years," remembers his son.

"He had horrific treatment and he was tortured, in a room, a cell, and kept awake at night by the screams of other Chinese being tortured, the brutal treatment meted out by the Japanese.

"They tried to get him to sign that he was a spy, but he wouldn't.

"They got two of his converts, who were thrown into prison as well, and they chopped one's head off in front of him - the chap wouldn't denounce my father.

"And another one, who was an oil worker who became one of his converts, they crucified him, and this chap went through crucifixion ratherthan denounce my father," he said.

David Davies finally returned to his roots and spent his last years in South Wales - but he showed a similar loyalty to his old friend.

"He never held it against Gladys Aylward at all," added Murray Davies.

"As a Christian, he supported her, apart from that fact [that she spied for the Chinese] he supported her all along, no grudges or anything against her."

The Adar Drycin series is no stranger to controversy, following the first programme of the series which told the life story of Winifred Wagner, the woman with Welsh roots who nearly married Hitler.